ALPINE WYOMING, WHATS NEW?

I decided I needed to load up the folding e mountain bike (the thought of any bike onboard any ski plane just cracks me up) and head to Alpine. The Yankee Doodle cafe is across the bridge and too far to walk, maybe 1.5 miles, the ebike and pedaling made short work of that. Not my favorite place to go, I liked it better when it was owned and operated by Ed Browning, P-51 bad ass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Baron_(aircraft) but he's been dead for 20 years or so. They used to have all kind of aircraft stuff as part of the decor. I REALLY liked Alpine best when it was still a gravel strip, and former Flying Tiger Dallas Clinger ran a little cafe at the junction, he too has gone to the big hangar in the sky, and was also another world class bad ass. The cafe across from the Afton strip is better, a bit cheaper too, so I usually go there. But, I wanted to go for a bike ride so Alpine it was.

They are almost through building a new FBO building, not that I will ever use their services but it will be up and operating by this spring from the looks of it. Another new place under construction, that I am much more likely to use as a mogas FBO, is right at the highway junction, a 15 minute walk for those who don't have wheels. A big truck stop/cafe combo, much closer then the Doodle, they will probably get my future business both for mogas (unlikely I'd need it just 45 minutes from home, but you never know) and for grub. I must be behind the times, but $2.50 for coffee at the Doodle seems high, the food uninspired and also pricey, and makes me feel like a tourist getting taken for a ride.

The Palisades Res was totally ice covered, but blown free of snow, and with the mountain scenary it would appear to be an absolutely perfect spot for wind powered ice boats (http://iceboatracing.com/usediceboats.html), I find it hard to believe no else has not picked up on that, they are a blast.
My father built one for us kids back in the '60's back in Michigan, they can go scary fast! I have no idea if the ice was thick enough, I skimmed over it but didn't get out and stomp on it. Heading back, I had my eyes on a couple sites I've landed before, one, 8600', in both summer and winter, but the high pressure was breaking down and there were 20 mph winds up high, and I didn't want to chance the uphill landing each site had, though I was feeling 10' high and bullet proof from the 4 previous days ski flying I realized I had better not push my luck that day. I get more conservative if I know we are due for a WX change. I landed a half dozen minor hills on the way back, nothing too epic. Then I noticed as I flew on that the winds aloft had changed a bit, and decided to check out a 8200' site closer to home, as I had noticed it last year and it had stayed in my mind.

70 miles from Alpine, the winds here were calm, and after a couple passes eyeballing things I set it down, the snow was deep but firm, no need to lay down tracks before coming to a full stop, though I did the usual cool off the skis thing, I almost never just slide to a full stop right off the bat. I do two or three almost stops, then a full. One thing about landing uphill, it sure makes the takeoffs easy. My tracks are hard to see, but they are between the lower tree on the right and the upper tree on the left, I often go out of my way to land near trees or other objects just to make the whole depth perception thing easier. A great view, into northern Utah, and the takeoff was a piece of cake, followed up by another half dozen lesser ski landings on the way home, a 2.5 hr breakfast flight. Some may notice the wavy lift strut in the pics, I have since straightened it out in the shop's vice. No, actually, it's perfect, and I don't know the reason why it would look that way in the air, maybe flight loads? Haha. some kind of visual trickery, an optical illusion, I hope.

Warning: geeky, unsolicited answer to follow. Regarding the wavy strut, I suspect it's an illusion caused by your camera. I sell network surveillance cameras for a living. Digital cameras today use an electronic shutter as opposed to a mechanical shutter. These electronic shutters are usually configured as rolling shutters meaning the entire image isn't exposed at the exact same time, but rather "rolls" down the frame one row of pixels at a time. This is almost never noticeable because the camera rolls through the entire frame in a fraction of a second (anywhere from 1/30th of a second all the way down to 1/500th of a second depending on lighting). Most of the time, nothing moves fast enough for the rolling shutter to be noticeable. However, I've seen images of high speed traffic captured at the wrong angle where the cars look "bent" because the top of the image was captured at an ever so slightly different moment in time from the bottom of the car. Some sort of high frequency vibration, either in the strut itself or in the camera mount, could cause the wave illusion that you're seeing. As the shutter rolls through each frame, the strut is being caught in a slightly different position in the frame as the camera and/or strut vibrates.

Interesting, thanks for your take on it. I hand hold the camera BTW,

Sounds like a great morning, beautiful landscape too. Datum's next to an E-bike hey, almost three modes of transport in one! I couldn't make out your tracks, could you try not to take off so short so we can get a better look.

A LITTLE FAT BIKE RIDE, AND A LITTLE SKI PLANE FLYING

Both at about the 800' level above my place. This is where I make my turnaround, and the game is to throttle back to idle and see how long I can keep it on the ground. The difference in distance spent coasting varies dramatically due to changing snow conditions and can be real educational. The other day, in 46 degree temps, once aimed downhill I only got up to about 10 mph, and never did reach lift off speed until I used throttle. Hard cold snow days, I'm off in 300' while at idle.

I had to check out an upcoming crane job, picking a large pre fabbed swimming pool, about an hours flight away. While I was over the job site, I noticed a good looking ridge nearby at 8100' so figured I might as well mix a little fun with work for a change. The pool is the blue thing, with the excavation next to it. There were some rocks showing on the ridge in some places, b ut not in others, the prevailing wind scours off one side and dumps it on the other, I landed "the other." The LZ was just below the static/pitot tube. The usual nice view on top, but the clouds were building, a few hours later it started snowing, but I was back home and up at the ski area so it was all good.

Service like this to my crane biz customers is what pays off for me, in this case I checked out the jobsite beforehand AT NO EXTRA CHARGE! My competition is not so generous, being all ground pounders. It actually helps a lot, I know what to expect when I roll up, it's not simply about going ski flying and calling it work

A few more from last week, the first part of March has been fantastic ski flying weather, blue skies, calm winds, (except today, why I'm posting this, nothing better to do) and little crane work for me so I was able to pile up the hours, nearly 30. It will all be over any day now......

All these different sites were from 7500' to 8900', and one of them offered a bit more excitement then needed.




Here is where the problem was, (the pic below) this one ridge had rocks, cleverly hidden just below the surface, and on slide out I felt and heard a couple big thumps, but nothing bad enough to make me go around. Besides, at that point I was almost stopped anyway. The good thing about the Datum wheel skis is any impact is pretty much all transmitted up the usual structural paths:the tires and bungee gear, (probably true with any ski install I guess) and the skis themselves are hell for stout. Not light, but the extra strength is worth the weight. Just as I was almost stopped, I slid over one final rock, which turned out to have a sharp spur sticking up, kind of like a can opener! I walked my touchdown path, and the other rocks I'd slid over were, while not good for the ski bottoms, were not jagged enough to cause any concern, this final one was a different deal. I didn't want to take the time to somehow expose the bottom to eyeball it (it was getting warmer), and after walking around a bit to get some idea if I could somehow figure where other rocks were hidden (no dice, any bump in the snow was brush caused, not by rocks) I realized I just had to go for it.

Tramping out a path would take too long, plus I wanted to preserve the snow as it was, and I figured the bottoms were beat up enough already (in 6 seasons of mountain ski flying, this wasn't the first time I had got into the rocks, just the worst) that another scrape or two wouldn't matter much. I started the fairly steep downhill takeoff, and didn't hit a single rock, until I was almost lifting off, BANG, damn it. I flew down into the snowfree valley and landed on a dirt road, then I could see the damage.....one ski bottom (3/16 UHMW,white) had a slit in it about half the length, the other was scraped up real bad, but neither were going to present a immediate problem.

Here's the pic of the rock strike area, (the second picture posted is the same site, looking towards the area I landed, with no visible rocks) the worst damage being caused by the last 4' of slideout. Sure, sitting here looking at my computer screen and drinking coffee, I can zoom in on some rock tops, that escaped my notice while circling in the real world. And, this was the only area they were visable, elsewhere it all looked like snow, period. There is always of course the change of this happening, I just had the bad luck to find a rock with a sharp spur sticking up, it had my name on it. Since this, I've flown another 12 hours, and the slit has not been a problem, I'll replace the bottoms when the season is over, not during the final days. The rock is hard to see (ha ha, no shit) but it's a foot or so behind the left ski. All in all, I'm really pleased the amount of abuse the UHMW can take, and will use the exact same stuff again.

There should be a law against someone having so much fun in such a beautiful area! I'm coming for a visit!

Whenever I am asked why I have not made the flight up to Alaska yet, I respond with, "I haven't wore out Idaho yet." A few more pics from that same epic day, 5.5 hours of flying, including the in transit time of a bit over an hour.

The backside of Borah, Idaho's highest peak, 12,662'. Every time I am back there (dead calm, for sure) it seems to be like something about out of a movie set, rendered by a real good artist, almost too damn scenic to be real.

I made the difficult annual decision to take the skis off. Difficult, as in looking out and down in the valley, I see browns and greens, looking up, still all white. But it's all gone on my strip, so I am once again on the 29" Airstreaks. A welcome change after the 6:00's wimpy stance, the plane just looks so much more bad ass of course. Plus the brakes once again work much better Having wheel skis as opposed to straight skis really complicates this spring time decision, in a perfect world I'd have wheel skis that could handle my 29" Airstreaks, but that isn't going to happen, too much weight and drag of course.

Time to fix the damaged, rock spur, (not just a rock, a rock with a built in can opener) caused damage. http://[email protected] was my source. They gave me just what I wanted, pre cut blanks just big enough for me to cut to final size, while still being able to ship via UPS. 83 bucks a ski, and I bought three, two spares for future adventures. If you're going to play, you're going to pay, and after close to 300 hrs of mountain ski flying, 83 bucks makes for damn cheap entertainment.

For the first time, once the ski was downside up on the work bench, I was able to get a really good idea on how much damage was caused. More importantly, if my decision to continue that days flight and subsequent ones was foolish and reckless, or an example of me once again exercising sound judgement, ha ha. I am happy to report that if anything, I was too conservative, I thought the split was much bigger, and at no point was I in danger of the dreaded "scoop shovel effect" (thanks for alerting me to that, MTV), where the ski splits 'the wrong way", and now you have a real problem.

It was a simple matter to unbolt/unscrew all the fasteners, giving me my first glimpse of the ski internals, now I know why they are so strong and heavy, both. The electrical line shown is for the lineal actuator, these skis are electric. These are 2000 lb gross weight skis, and will be hard to break with my plane, though I'm working at it. The old skin was laid over the new, and traced with a felt pen, then cut out with a coarse metal cutting blade in a jig saw. Sure, a follower carbide bit in a router would have been slicker, but I didn't have one handy, and I care what the edges of my skis LOOK like about as much as I care what the Herculiner bedliner I use on my Airstreaks looks like, nada. Attaching the new skins took about an hour, the entire process went about like I thought, with no surprises. The old skin will be hung on the shop's Wall of Shame next to all the props that have "reached the end of their service life", (in one case, that life from new was about 1 hr TT, long story), and to also serve as a future pattern. Now I have to decide if I'm going to bother to replace the other ski bottom, it's scraped up pretty good, but nothing to make much difference in drag on the snow, no splits anyway. One thing I've learned snowboarding: if you tune your board, get the edges nice and sharp etc., you WILL find rocks, right away! If you are on your rock board, you won't find any. So....I'll probably just leave it as is, until it really needs replacement.

Great ski flying conditions the last few days, perfect weather and snow.

This site at 7500' gave me some grief on my first year of ski flying. Still learning about snow conditions, landing on slopes and keeping your speed up until the turnaround, and getting stuck! I learned how handy my emergency shovel, and plastic garbage bags could be, using both, plus a couple hours of hard labor to get the hell out of there. Since then, I hit it once a year, using my now vast ski flying knowledge to totally kick it's ass (right.....) even having fun with it (taunting it) by doing my turnaround around the tree. I haven't been stuck in 4 years now, I'm much more suspicious, less trusting, and also probably lucky, so I am not letting my guard down. As usual, the slope is more pronounced then it looks here in reality.


I had planned to fly north, but due to fog, flew south, and at one point got my bike out (oh yeah, I usually take it even when ski flying) and rode into Logan UT to get lunch. The traffic there made the bike ride the most dangerous part of the 3.5 hours of flying that day. There was a sailplane training session going on, and after landing the only ski plane there (they didn't realize they had a ski plane strip between the taxiway and the runway) I got the bike out and rode over to the glider pilot and asked him if he was some kind of a weirdo, like me, everyone else (and it's a super busy place with lots of training going on) had boring old SEL aircraft.
Old homestead:

Tom, You are having entirely too damned much fun!! While I had to unload an airplane getting delivered via truck transport yesterday in more than -30 windchill!! No way in hell I was going to go flying!

No opportunity for snow play where I am. But, DANG I love living vicariously thru your posts.
Great photos, Gets me so excited I had to go aggrevate the Neigbors!

Flyrite wrote:No opportunity for snow play where I am. But, DANG I love living vicariously thru your posts.
Great photos, Gets me so excited I had to go aggrevate the Neigbors!

If you're running a snow deficit, you're probably also short of ice. Spotted today, an ice fisherman's shanty. A slick idea, using that little trailer, I'd be real surprised if it didn't have a hatch in the floor..

Oddly enough, I'm probably at my most proficient in off airport landings during the winter. I usually land a second time after laying down tracks in virgin snow, the game being trying to see how close I can set down the second time in the previous tracks. We can't do that in the summer, not in most places. Having no brakes really gets you dialed into airspeed control on short final. Another perhaps unexpected benefit of cold weather flying:NO BUGS

Today after work, coulda gone snowboarding but..... Across the valley from my place, this is what a skiplane pilot can do when he can't waterski. Like getting the wheels wet, it's pointless (other then for practicing your spot landings), and serves no useful purpose, other then being a LOT of fun. I tracked up all the powder on my side of the valley the last few days, but there is plenty of virgin snow left on the opposite side, about 3' deep right now. I was able to get a good half mile of skiing in down this slope with the engine at idle, It's steeper then it looks) before the increasing speed lifted me off, my longest run of the year. I really need to invent a landing gear that allow me to carve turns on the skis though, carve like I do snowboarding, it's frustrating not being able to. Sure, I can effect a minor change in direction while sliding down, but can't carve. My life sucks

Hit some gravel bars today. Length wasn't an issue, width could have been, but by now I can usually guesstimate pretty closely what I need to make the turnaround.



We've had a whole of snow in the last couple storms, and I'm running out of room to pile it. My ramp up to the hangar is getting bit tight, and today thanks to a 18 mph direct crosswind, I missed it a bit. Ended up stuck there, couldn't move forward, so I gradually throttled back and slide back a foot until the tailski got sideways and that prevented any more movement. But I still put the wheel down on the left side as an additional safeguard before going to an idle. After idling for a couple minutes, I shut it off and just sat there, ready to restart if needed. Then I carefully climbed out, trying not to disturb the equilibrium. With one hand on a lift strut I rooted around in my baggage area until I found the tie down ropes (note to self:put them on top where you can get to them quicker) and lassoed the prop hub and tied it off to the HydroSwing bottom door strut, and then was able to relax. A few minutes with the scoop shovel and then with the handy rope comalong I pulled it up onto the slab, where I was able to spin it around (on the wheels now) and pull it into the heated hangar, out of the wind finally, and the 16 degree temps, safe and sound. I pulled from a bridle on the the two gear legs BTW, using hardware I keep handy, the prop lasso was just to secure it until I could get the rope comalong out of the hangar and rig it.

Due to all the snow this season, I've been forced to pile it up in places it normally doesn't go, and then those piles cause drifting. After two weeks of no flying due to the WX, I had a sharp break on the drift leading from my short level area in front of my hangar to the sloped runway. that slope is always there, but the drift amplified it to the extent that using the prop as a snowblower was a definite possibility. Normally I would have used the tractor to blow out the access road from the tractor storage building to the hangar, a major effort this winter, just to get to the ramp and then get to work on it. My grooming rake couldn't move the drift, as it was rock hard due to the freeze/thaw cycles. Turns out, the mini X was just the ticket, it's front blade and it's tracks and their low weight per sq. inch was perfect for creeping out and shaving that drift away, and then a couple minutes with the rake working the now loosened up snow got the ramp to it's usual prop friendly angle

The funny thing is the only reason it's in the hangar is for winter time dead storage, my other outbuildings are full, it never occurred to me that having it there would be even better then using the tractor to massage my exit ramp. The tracks also compacted and smoothed out the snow better then my tractor tires, just a win/win all around. You know the feeling of buying an expensive tool, and then finding out it's even handier then you had imagined? That's what I have going on with the mini X, and instead of begrudging the room it takes up in the hangar, it's now earning it's keep, aviation wise.

courierguy wrote:

Flyrite wrote:No opportunity for snow play where I am. But, DANG I love living vicariously thru your posts.
Great photos, Gets me so excited I had to go aggrevate the Neigbors!

If you're running a snow deficit, you're probably also short of ice. Spotted today, an ice fisherman's shanty. A slick idea, using that little trailer, I'd be real surprised if it didn't have a hatch in the floor..

Oddly enough, I'm probably at my most proficient in off airport landings during the winter. I usually land a second time after laying down tracks in virgin snow, the game being trying to see how close I can set down the second time in the previous tracks. We can't do that in the summer, not in most places. Having no brakes really gets you dialed into airspeed control on short final. Another perhaps unexpected benefit of cold weather flying:NO BUGS

Tom, You need to come up to my part of the country during the winter! Those 'ice shantys" have gotten to be near luxury compared to when I was growing up. When I was younger, they were little 4x6 hardboard walls with a square holw in the floor for either spearing or angling fish. I actually prefered spearing as to me it was like hunting. Now days, they are built with multiple holes in the bootom with covers. The fancier ones have bunks, furnaces, stoves, even toilets!! Fisherpeople will stay out for days fishing. Well, really they are just out there drinking beer and other alcoholic beverages. The locals take fishing (beer drinking) vey seriously!!

Look up Glacier Ice House or Ice Castles. Glacier is built a few miles away from my house.

www.glaciericehouse.com

icecastlefh.com

WW, I'm from Michigan, nuff said! I get a kick out of the ice shanty towns I see here on our lakes, these guys think they are styling but there're actually roughing it, compared to the mid west ice palaces I've seen anyway.

IFR on top, but I wasn't going down in the valley.


One thing I've found, when circling over a new LZ and getting the lay of the land, it really helps to pick out a landmark to get re oriented when on short final. That's because once I AM on short final, now looking at the slope, things look different then when overhead, and ...this time I used those short trees on the right, plus the bigger ones to aid my depth perception, much better then coming down into a sea of blinding white, on undulating terrain. I had my eye on this site for 3 years, and finally got the right day. I also need to keep oriented so when I start my takeoff, I am heading towards the correct spot, as the takeoff sight picture is real limited due to the slope falling away once on the ground/snow. Making up for that is the slope helping the takeoff, it was pretty short, for near full gross, including the folding bike. The cafe in Challis I like is too damn far from the strip to walk. Plus, the bike weight hits the sweet spot on my CG, just the perfect amount of somewhat aft loading, I've had some of my shortest, highest, most epic landings with the bike on board, go figure. An absolutely perfect day! 9K


A few miles away.

Locally, an area normally covered in rock and tall brush, now is "just right."